


Law & Order & Aliens

by Melyanna (darthmelyanna)



Series: west-gate: A West Wing/Stargate Crossover [18]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthmelyanna/pseuds/Melyanna
Summary: Eventually, law must come to Atlantis.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freifraufischer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freifraufischer/gifts).



> For my dear friend freifraufischer, who was instrumental in the entirety of this series. I'm a better writer because of you, Katherine.

Ellie hated that they’d been called back to work early, but there was one nice thing about being away from her family: there was no risk of nieces and nephews bursting in on them. Kate Harper, being the class act she was, had gotten them a hotel room not far from the base. It was plain, but it was clean and private. They might get called in the middle of the night for some emergency, but they were away from the never-ending activity of the SGC.

The night before, they’d gotten into the hotel with just enough energy to set their luggage down and undress. Ellie didn’t even entirely remember getting into bed. The room was very dark, and for quite a while she resisted waking.

Then the room phone rang, along with two cell phones, and Marcus groaned as he woke up. “Why didn’t you tell Jordan to jump in a lake?” he grumbled into Ellie’s bare skin.

She groped for one of the phones. “There’s not a lake near Atlantis.”

“Jump in an ocean, then.”

Ellie ignored him as she found the phone and hit a button to answer it. “Hello?” she said, and mercifully the other phones stopped ringing.

“Dr. Bartlet, it’s Admiral Harper,” said the woman on the other end. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we’ve put this off about as long as we can. I need you and Colonel Lorne at the SGC as soon as possible. This is a very sensitive matter.”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.” Ellie wasn’t sure Kate heard any of that, as there was a click on the line almost before she finished speaking.

Ellie set the phone aside and sat up. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, stretching her arms over her head for a minute. “What time is it?” Marcus asked.

“A little after five,” she told him. “Time to get up. Let the agents know, will you?”

She got up and headed to take a shower. She was a little amused when she looked back at the bed and saw her husband watching her walk naked through the hotel room. “Seriously, Marcus, I’m flattered, but we have to get moving.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

By the time Ellie got out of the shower, she was feeling more awake. Marcus had thrown open the curtains, filling the room with sunshine. While he was in the shower, she finished getting ready and made sure all of their belongings were in their suitcases. Marcus came out of the bathroom in grey BDUs, which startled her slightly. It had been weeks since she saw him in that uniform.

He walked up to her and cupped her face, leaning in to kiss her gently. “Whatever the admiral wants from us, it better be good,” he said.

Ellie sighed. “She’s been married three times now. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t interrupt our honeymoon for anything short of disaster.”

As deputy director of the Atlantis expedition, Ellie had Diplomatic Service protection while on Earth. Armed guards had been a serious nuisance in the last month, between the wedding and the honeymoon and just being able to spend time with the family she saw too infrequently. Now, at least, they were useful. They drove the couple to the SGC, meaning neither of them had to be all that alert before getting there.

Kate Harper was apologetic when they walked into her office, but such niceties were short-lived. She shut both doors and said, “There was a murder in Atlantis about sixteen hours ago.”

“What?” Ellie and Marcus said in unison.

“A research assistant in the biochem department,” Harper explained. “Lee Treadwell. He was found dead in his lab. Gunshot wound.”

Ellie sank into a chair, too stunned to speak. Treadwell was one of the newest members of the expedition. She didn’t know him. She wasn’t sure she could even think of what he looked like.

“Is there a suspect?” Marcus asked.

“Kendall has confined nearly everyone to quarters, with all communication devices down, all but a skeleton crew in the gate room and the infirmary,” said the admiral. “Teams that were off-world are being directed to the alpha site for the time being.”

Ellie finally saw the bigger problem. “There’s no one in Atlantis qualified to conduct a murder investigation.”

“Yeah, and that’s why you two are here,” Kate continued. “Dr. Bartlet, you and Dr. Kendall put together a list of candidates for a police force about eight months ago.”

“Yes, it was part of a plan for expanding the expedition personnel,” Ellie replied. “But Congress only approved part of the expansion. Among other things, the police force was omitted.”

“I think they’re going to change their minds once they hear about this. The important thing is, we already have a list of candidates.” Harper picked up a stack of files from her desk and handed it to Ellie. “That’s what you two are here for. You have twelve hours to hire an investigator. These candidates are either here or on their way here. Your first interview is at 0730.”

* * *

As he and Ellie very quickly examined the résumés handed to them by the admiral, Marcus couldn’t help thinking that this was not how he’d planned to spend the last hours of his leave. Instead of being with either of their families (or better, alone behind a locked door), they were in the SGC, acting as an impromptu hiring committee for a job that neither of them knew much about.

Life in the Stargate program was always a little absurd, but this was taking it to new heights.

When he saw the list of candidates they were to interview, Marcus hoped that a perusal of their paperwork would eliminate some of them, but there was no such luck. Everybody on the list was highly qualified, and at this hour of the morning, he was a little irritated with his wife and their boss for being so thorough in their work. He’d get over it after he’d had more coffee.

So it all came down to a very subjective interview process. After every interview, he and Ellie would very quickly discuss their gut reactions to the latest candidate. Usually they agreed on whether or not the person would be acceptable, but more than once they disagreed on the reasons for that feeling.

They worked straight through six hours of interviews before breaking for a late, quick lunch. The first interview after that was with Molly Harrigan, a woman about Ellie’s age whose current job was in the forensics lab of the NYPD, which meant she had been a beat cop before joining the crime lab. She had been in the Navy after college and was now an Army reservist. She also had a master’s degree in forensic science.

After asking some questions about Harrigan’s professional experience, Ellie turned the line of conversation to the job. “What do you think would present the greatest challenge to an investigator in Atlantis?” she asked, a question she had asked eight times already today.

Harrigan took a minute to consider the question. “Based on what I know about Atlantis? I’d say the scientists.”

That surprised Marcus and Ellie both. “What makes you say that?” Marcus asked.

“Do you know how many murders there are on college campuses every year?” she asked in return. “And I don’t mean muggings gone wrong. I mean outright, premeditated murders.  I processed a crime scene last year on the Columbia campus that turned out to involve a love triangle in the physics department. Those people lived in a different reality.”

Ellie and Marcus shared a look, but Harrigan went on before either of them could respond. “I’d imagine the isolation of the expedition would cause some trouble too. I’m not a forensic psychologist, but that kind of static environment could present problems.”

“Yeah, that’s something our psychologist has done a lot of study on,” Ellie said.

“You only have one psychologist?” Harrigan said, surprised. “I thought you had at least a thousand people on the expedition by now.”

“It’s closer to two,” Ellie replied. “Dr. Kendall and I are working on the issue.”

Harrigan moved the subject along. “I could also see the job being somewhat like an NCIS agent afloat. I remember the agents afloat being pretty lonely when I was in the Navy. It’s tough to be the only member of law enforcement in what amounts to a small town in the middle of nowhere. Otherwise, I’d have to see the actual site and how it’s used by personnel. I’ve seen the Atlantis episodes of Sarah Gardner’s show, but I don’t know how much that reflected reality.”

“Yeah, I don’t think either one of us have any idea,” Marcus replied. “We don’t get much time to watch TV.”

“You’re not missing much.”

That startled him. “You weren’t impressed by Dr. Gardner’s show?”

“Well, it wasn’t bad. But all the planets she visits in the Milky Way look like the Pacific Northwest, and that gets old.”

Marcus nodded, not sure how to respond to that. He changed the subject instead. “So what prompted your interest in the expedition?”

Harrigan shrugged. “I’m from a small town. I like the challenge of my job, but I don’t necessarily like living in New York. There’s not many small places that have real demand for crime scene investigators.”

“You know we have a fair number of physicists, right?”

“Do they all live in their own realities?”

“Hate to say it, but yes,” Ellie replied. “Though to hear them tell it, we’re lucky we don’t have theoretical physicists around.” She closed up the file on Harrigan and leaned forward. “There’s one more thing we have to talk about. Sometimes we have to expect everyone, civilians included, to take up arms. If you think that might be a problem, this is the time to mention it.”

“I can’t imagine that it would be,” Harrigan said. “I served a tour in Kazakhstan when the reserves were sent in.”

Marcus realized that he must have missed that line on her résumé. His opinion of her qualifications shot up several notches at that point. He’d heard horror stories from old buddies who’d been deployed there. He wasn’t going to say that it was on par with fighting off space vampires, but he was aware enough of the events in central Asia to know that soldiers who had been there deserved respect.

The interview wrapped up before long. Once Harrigan was out the door, Ellie turned to Marcus and said, “I think she’s perfect.”

“I think she’s very good,” he replied. “I’m not calling anyone perfect till we’re done.”

“She’s got forensics experience, law enforcement experience, active duty experience,” Ellie went on. “She was able to give us a succinct analysis of the problems of law enforcement in an environment like Atlantis. Don’t you think those answers she gave us were much better than anything else we’ve heard so far?” When he merely nodded, Ellie’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Don’t you think she looks like Cadman?”

“They’ve both got red hair. If I dyed my hair red, you’d think I look like Laura too.”

“And talks like Kate?”

“So she’s analytical. It’s her job.”

“I guess. I don’t have anything specific against her. I just wonder how she’s going to get along with people,” Marcus said at length.

“She’d be the lone voice of law enforcement. Not being friends with everyone would probably be a good thing.”

“Not for her emotional health.”

“Okay, now you sound like Kate.”

By the time the last interview was done, though, Marcus had come around on the subject. They reported their selection to Admiral Harper, who was pleased. “I didn’t want to exert any influence on the process, but I was hoping you’d choose her,” she said.

“You know Molly Harrigan, Admiral?” Ellie said.

“I know three or four of her former COs. They had good things to say about her.”

The admiral called Harrigan to the briefing room outside her office, and the three of them informed the scientist that she’d been hired, at least temporarily. “I’m sure you’ve been curious about the rush to get this post filled,” Ellie said, but there was no need to elaborate.

“How many bodies are there?” Harrigan asked.

“Just the one,” Admiral Harper said. “But you can understand the desire to get this solved quickly.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m in. Do I need to sign anything? Non-disclosure agreement, some kind of liability release in case I run into space zombies or something?”

Marcus turned to his wife. “We haven’t run into zombies yet, have we?”

Ellie steadfastly kept her eyes forward. “Bite your tongue.”

* * *

When they stepped through the gate into Atlantis, Jordan Kendall looked like she’d never been so happy to see anyone. She greeted Ellie and Marcus hurriedly before introducing herself to Molly Harrigan. “I’m not sure what to call you,” Jordan said, something which hadn’t occurred to Ellie yet. “You don’t have a doctorate or a rank.”

“Molly’s fine for now. So’s Harrigan.” She slid her hands into the pockets of her jacket; she was still wearing the suit she’d come to the interview in. “I can get settled in after a while, but I probably need to get started on the investigation now.”

Jordan agreed and sent her off to the infirmary, where the body was, with a Marine. The rest headed up the stairs to the control room, but halfway up Jordan stopped. “Oh, how was the wedding?”

“Long,” Marcus said immediately, and Ellie laughed.

“You knew exactly what we were getting into when my parents said they’d prefer we have the full mass,” she reminded him. “And your parents suggested it too.”

“Yeah, but we’re grown-ups. We could have eloped.”

Ellie rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to her boss. “It was lovely. We got to see a lot of family and friends in the process, too.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it. And sorry that you had to cut things short to get back here.”

“It’s not like we didn’t know it was a possibility,” Marcus pointed out.

The three made it into Jordan’s office and settled around the desk. “So tell us what happened with Treadwell,” Ellie said. “Harper only gave us the bare minimum. I take it there wasn’t video of the shooting?”

“No, the cameras had been turned off some hours earlier in that lab and the corridor outside it.”

“Well, that can be traced,” Marcus said.

“Not if they were disconnected from their power supply and you don’t have the tools for fingerprint analysis.” Jordan leaned back in her chair and sighed. “This will probably be easiest if Ms. Harrigan can locate the weapon and tie it to someone.”

“How much longer are you planning to keep the lockdown in effect?” Ellie asked.

Jordan hedged. “Let’s just hope our new investigator solves this quickly.”

As they had not been in Atlantis at the time of the incident, Ellie and Marcus were allowed to move freely around the city. They spent a fair amount of their time that first day back helping a handful of Marines deliver food to the people on lockdown. At the end of it, they were both exhausted due to the time difference, but they _were_ newlyweds. They weren’t about to let jet lag interfere.

Marcus was busy unpacking their luggage while Ellie brushed her teeth. They’d decided to use his quarters instead of hers, as the room was larger. Eventually they might move into John and Elizabeth’s old quarters, especially if they started having children. They both knew they wanted to, but had acknowledged that they were older than would be ideal for starting a family.

There was a knock on the door while Ellie was rinsing her mouth out, and she heard Marcus say he’d get it. Ellie turned off the water just in time to hear Molly Harrigan. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she was saying. “I must have gotten turned around. All the hallways look exactly the same. I thought this was Dr. Bartlet’s room.”

“Hang on a second,” Marcus replied. “El?”

While wiping her face with a towel, Ellie glanced around the bathroom for her robe. It wasn’t there. She gave herself a wry look in the mirror before exiting, dressed in nothing but one of Marcus’ shirts. “Hi,” she said to Harrigan once she was in view of the doorway.

Harrigan’s eyes were wide, and her face was slightly flushed. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated. “I didn’t realize...”

“Yeah, we were on Earth for our wedding,” Ellie said quietly. It didn’t escape her notice that her husband’s eyes were trained on her bare legs.

“I can come back in the morning,” the other woman replied, taking a step back.

“No, no,” Ellie insisted. “I’ll find my robe. Marcus, find her a place to sit.”

While Ellie retrieved her robe from a suitcase, Marcus cleared off the room’s two chairs, letting their guest sit in one of them. Ellie preferred to stand, as standing meant she didn’t have to hold her robe closed to keep her legs covered. “So what do you have, Ms. Harrigan?” she asked.

“I’ve narrowed it down to three suspects who have the skills to take out the camera system and don’t have sufficient alibis for the time of the murder,” Harrigan replied. “I was a little surprised that there were so many people here who could have taken out the cameras.”

“Yeah, the first group to come here had to have multiple fields of expertise. Even most of the officers had graduate degrees in something,” Marcus said. “Since disclosure, there’s been such a demand to come here that nobody with a single PhD is getting to an interview.”

“Except the medical people,” Ellie pointed out.

“Except the medical people. Sorry, honey.”

Harrigan watched this exchange with some evident amusement. “Anyway, I’ve got three suspects. They’ve been transferred down to that dungeon you call holding cells, and the director is lifting the lockdown. She thought you might like to know.”

Ellie suspected that Jordan had intended that Harrigan radio that information to her, but didn’t say so aloud. “Are you going to interview them tonight?”

“No, Kendall said to wait till morning. I’ve got to do some research before I can talk to one of them, anyway. He’s British.”

“I don’t follow,” Marcus said, frowning.

“I need to know what his legal rights are before I interrogate him.”

“Oh,” Ellie said, curling her nose up. “That could get sticky.”

“You could say that again.” Harrigan got up then and headed for the door. “Thanks for your time. And again, sorry about showing up.”

Marcus saw her out, and when the door was closed and locked, he turned to Ellie. “What are the odds Cadman put her up to that?”

“Pretty low,” Ellie replied, “since she’s on the _Daedalus_ right now.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

“You hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t come around to interrogate you about your connubial bliss?”

“Did you just use the word ’connubial’?”

“I did,” she said, untying her robe and letting it fall to the floor. She crossed the room, swaying her hips a little more than normal, and set her arms around his neck. His hands seemed to move of their own accord, slipping up under her shirt to cup her backside. “But I have it on good authority that you think it’s hot when I use SAT words.”

“Yeah? Whose authority?”

“Yours.”

He laughed as he moved, backing her toward the bed. She bumped into the edge and fell back onto the mattress gracelessly. Marcus followed her, maneuvering them to the pillows, and Ellie felt a tremendous thrill down her spine as her husband, even fully clothed, covered her body with his. “I’m going to let you in on a secret, El,” he said, kissing a particularly sensitive spot on her neck. “There’s not much you do that I don’t find hot.”

That set her giggling, even as he made her gasp.

* * *

The _Daedalus_ returned the following morning. Marcus was there to meet the returning personnel, partly to see the shocked look on Cadman’s face when she saw he was there. True to his expectations, she dropped her jaw and her bag when she saw him. “Sir? Are you a hologram?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Cadman,” he replied. “There was an emergency. Ellie and I had to take the shortcut.”

“Well, that’s not fair,” she said. “Kate and I had plans for improving your quarters. Didn’t we, Kate?” she asked of Kate, who was indeed coming down the ramp at that moment.

“Don’t get me involved in your crazy schemes,” Kate said. “You got me in enough trouble at that restaurant in New Orleans.”

“What were you two doing in—never mind. I don’t want to know.” Marcus turned his attention to Kate, and to his work-related reason for showing up early. “I need to talk to you.”

“Ooh, somebody’s in trouble,” Cadman said while Kate, though mystified, walked in his direction.

“Shut up, Cadman,” he and Kate said in unison.

They headed to her office, which wasn’t far from the dock. Along the way they asked each other perfunctory questions about how they’d spent their time since the wedding. The answers were all superficial, as Marcus imagined that she didn’t want to spill details anymore than he did. Then, when they were behind closed doors, she let out a sigh. “I don’t get a minute to sit down before I have to work, do I?”

Marcus crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. “Ellie and I didn’t just take the shortcut home. We were supposed to have another three days of leave.”

“I thought you were back way too early.” Kate set her bags down and leaned against her desk. “What’s going on, Marcus?”

“One of the new guys in biochem was murdered a couple days ago.” Kate gasped, but didn’t say anything. “Ellie and I got called in to do a marathon of interviews to hire somebody with some level of law enforcement experience to come investigate this mess. Practically the entire city was confined to quarters for two days.”

“So why do you need me?” she asked.

“Harrigan—the woman we hired—wants access to psych records on the three suspects.”

Kate reacted exactly the way he’d imagined. Her eyes got wide and she was shaking her head before he’d finished speaking. “Absolutely not.”

“You have an ethical obligation if you suspected someone might cause harm,” he said, repeating what Harrigan had told him to say if she resisted.

“Damn it, Marcus, I know that!” she shouted, which took him aback. She hadn’t raised her voice to him in years, not since they stopped sleeping together. “Do you think I would have ignored warning signs? Not everyone comes to me often enough for me to keep track. And there aren’t enough hours in the day for me to evaluate every single person in Atlantis.”

That had been a sore spot with her ever since disclosure had brought the first major expansion of the expedition. With the first hundred, she had managed to keep track of everyone. Now, she could barely keep up with the annual evaluations. Jordan and Ellie knew that, but when they sent their personnel requests to Congress, the request for more mental health professionals had been denied, along with the security personnel.

Marcus was not a politician, but it seemed to him that the two denials were linked by the same short-sightedness and misunderstanding of what the Atlantis expedition was now. Elizabeth Weir had been the leader of an expedition. Jordan Kendall was the mayor of a town.

Having expressed her frustration, Kate dropped her head to her chest. “Who are the suspects?” she asked.

“Lian Chang, Ryan Graber, and Erin Milston.”

Kate looked up at him, her expression grave. He knew immediately that she suspected something. “Marcus,” she said, “I can’t just tell you, or this Harrigan person, what’s going on in someone’s life.”

“I know,” he replied, gently. “And we shouldn’t have asked you.”

He turned to leave, but she stopped him. “Hang on.” When he looked at her again, he saw her massaging one of her palms, something she did when she was stressed. “Tell Harrigan to ask Graber what kind of news he’s gotten from home lately,” she said. “You didn’t hear this from me.”

Marcus nodded. “I hate that we’ve had to do this.”

“Not as much as I do.”

* * *

Ellie watched Harrigan’s interrogation of Graber over a monitor. He asked for counsel almost immediately after the interview began, which put them in a bit of a bind. The only lawyer in the galaxy was Jordan Kendall. The matter of Jordan’s conflicting interests as the director of the expedition was less an issue with her than, as she put it, the number of years between her and crim pro. Still, it wasn’t like they had a choice. Harrigan conducted the interview, Jordan advised Graber, and eventually Graber invoked his right to remain silent.

The evidence wasn’t entirely conclusive, but it would likely be enough. Treadwell worked with Graber, who had just gotten news that an old colleague was publishing material which Graber believed he ought to get credit for. He had access to the lab and access to the armory, as he occasionally went off-world. He could dismantle the cameras in the lab and the corridor. There was, however, video footage of him throwing something that looked like a gun from a pier, and while that gun would probably never be retrieved, Harrigan had found the clothes he’d been wearing the day of the shooting and found gunpowder residue in all the right places.

Along with evidence to back up an arrest, they sent Graber back to Earth for trial. Afterward, Harrigan had a meeting with Ellie, Marcus, and Jordan to discuss the experience and how to improve it. Harrigan came with a long list, the top of which was what Kate had been asking for ever since Jordan arrived in Atlantis. “I’ve talked with Dr. Heightmeyer. She’s obviously an extremely good psychologist, but she’s also the first to admit that she cannot handle everyone here anymore.”

Ellie shifted in her seat, not wanting to criticize her old boss but knowing Elizabeth’s dislike of therapy had been part of the reason she never made psych evals mandatory more than once a year. John, who shared Elizabeth’s distaste for shrinks, had never challenged her on this like he had on firearms training for civilians. Ellie had hinted a couple times, but it had never gotten very far.

“It’s unfortunate,” Jordan said, speaking before Ellie could, “but this incident might convince the Senate to approve the personnel.”

“You also need to think about how to deal with all the nationalities at play here and what expectations they have of the legal system,” Harrigan continued. “I suspect the best solution will be to draft a legal code. Major felonies would still need to be referred to Earth for trial, but there are some things that might be dealt with here just as well. I imagine that the three of you wind up mediating small disputes that take up time you don’t have. That would be an interesting problem to work on.”

At that point, Ellie realized that while Molly Harrigan lacked a string of letters after her name, she was just as much a nerd as the rest of them in this city.

That night, Marcus was working later than normal in a training exercise. Ellie wasn’t surprised when Kate stopped by to talk. She knew Marcus had talked to Kate when the _Daedalus_ arrived, and given some of the pointed questions Harrigan had asked, she suspected that Kate had given up some information.

After sitting together on the couch for a couple minutes, Kate broke the silence. “I’m not a state psychologist,” she said. “I wasn’t doing psych exams for the prosecution. I shouldn’t be forced to break doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“I know,” Ellie replied. “It was a bad situation all around, Kate.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Ellie wasn’t entirely sure what to say. After her residency, she’d gone straight into research. Doctor-patient privilege was sacrosanct, but also more theoretical to her than it was to doctors who saw patients every day.

Finally, Kate said what was really bothering her. “What if no one here will trust me after this?”

“No one will know where that information came from.”

“By my count, there’s five of us who know,” Kate replied. “Besides, what happens next time Harrigan needs to know something? People are going to find out eventually.”

“Well,” Ellie said, not entirely serious, “there’s always administration.”

“You offering me your job?”

That made Ellie laugh, and at the sound Kate smiled slowly. “More like Carson’s,” Ellie said when she was calm enough to speak. “If Congress lets us hire people this time, someone will have to be in charge of the mental health department. Jordan and I haven’t discussed it, but I can’t imagine who else we’d tap to run it.”

“Well, I’m glad to be wanted by default.”

Ellie set her arm around her friend and squeezed her shoulders. “You okay?”

“Getting there. I think I’m going to find Radek. Then I’ll be okay.”

Marcus arrived just as Kate was leaving and took her place next to Ellie. He likely knew why Kate had been there, but he didn’t speak about it. Instead, he said, “We dodged a bullet, by the way, coming back early.”

“Oh?”

“Cadman had plans for things to do to our bedroom.”

“You mean practical jokes?”

“I think she was moving past practical jokes and into acts of war.”


	2. Chapter 2

Ainsley Hayes did not have the best first day as attorney general. After sailing through Senate confirmation, she’d had to endure the mother of all bad news cycles, set off by Cameron, a live microphone, and a bare-breasted statue in the lobby at the Justice Department.

The nonsense only ended when she put out a statement saying that only twelve-year-old boys would be titillated by the larger-than-life aluminum art deco statue, although it probably helped that Donna Moss, the White House communications director, had distracted the press corps. Someone realized that nobody knew what President Weir’s second doctorate was in. Instead of looking it up, they asked Donna, who gave them increasingly ridiculous answers until she finally reached the limits of their collective credulity with bioengineering.

Strangely, some of them had believed ethnomusicology.

So on Ainsley’s second day at the DoJ, she was more than a little nervous to get a call from the White House. The statue incident was over, so she worried that the president was calling her in to scold her about something. She was in the line of succession now, though, so that was probably a little unlikely.

“I have to thank you,” President Weir said when Ainsley came into the Oval Office, pouring each of them a glass of water.

“For what?” Ainsley asked, instead of just taking the compliment.

“Putting out your little fire by yourself yesterday,” Elizabeth replied. “We’re still getting used to how the phones work here.”

“Well, you did live in another galaxy there for a while, ma’am,” Ainsley said, unable to help a smile.

Elizabeth laughed and sat down, waving to Ainsley to join her. “You know the scene in that one Star Trek movie where Scotty’s trying to talk to the mouse? Sometimes I feel that way. I was in Atlantis just long enough that coming back here and using telephones is weird.”

Ainsley thought for a second. “Was that the one with the whales?”

“Yes.”

“Are you a Star Trek fan?”

“Shut up.”

Ainsley cracked up. When she’d calmed down again, she said, “So what can I do for you, ma’am?”

“I hate to do this last minute, but I need you to go to Atlantis,” Elizabeth replied. “They’ve got an experiment I need you check in on.”

Ainsley frowned. “I’m not a scientist.”

“No, if this were a scientific experiment, I’d just have Kate Harper dial Atlantis and I’d chat with Rodney McKay,” the President said. “There’s a woman there named Molly Harrigan. Ellie Bartlet hired her about two years ago as internal security. She was in Kazakhstan eight years ago, and she’s been a beat cop and a crime scene investigator in New York City.”

“Didn’t Ellie Bartlet get married about two years ago?” Ainsley asked.

“Yeah, her honeymoon got interrupted because someone on Atlantis snapped and killed a guy.”

“So they needed a soldier, police officer, and forensic scientist all in one.”

“Pretty much. Anyway, Ms. Harrigan has spent the last two years drafting a legal code for the city. Ellie asked me to send someone to look it over.”

Ainsley thought of Lila and of her husband of three months. “Ellie couldn’t just send it?”

“I think the conversation is important too.”

Ainsley sighed. “Well, my husband’s going to want to come too.”

That caught Elizabeth off-guard. “You’re married?”

“That wasn’t in the vetting file on me?” Ainsley asked, smiling again.

“Oh, like I read a file on you,” Elizabeth replied. “Jed Bartlet said, ‘Hey, you should make Ainsley Hayes your attorney general,’ so I did. I knew if there was a problem someone would have pointed it out.”

Ainsley wasn’t particularly surprised to hear that President Bartlet had suggested her. “I got married three months ago. The Bartlets were there. He didn’t mention that to you?”

“Well, since three months ago I was six days out from election day, no.” Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. “Why in the world would your husband think he can go with you to Atlantis?”

For some reason Ainsley found this inordinately funny. “He used to command SG-1, ma’am.”

That startled Elizabeth even more than the news that Ainsley was married. “I’m assuming you mean Cameron Mitchell and not Jack O’Neill.”

“Jack’s a nice guy. Not really my type,” Ainsley replied. “For that matter, neither is Samantha Carter.”

“Well, you’re both blonde and brilliant Republicans, so I can see how that wouldn’t work out.”

Ainsley laughed quietly. “When do you need me in Atlantis, ma’am?”

“How soon can you and General Mitchell get to Colorado?”

“Depends on how swiftly my mother drops everything to take care of Lila.”

“Well, John’s mother usually has her schedule completely clear before we call her. I assume that’s a common trait to grandmothers.”

“That does seem like the most plausible explanation.”

Elizabeth smiled and headed back to her desk. “Go make your call. If your husband is anything like mine, he’ll be relieved to get out of this town of lunacy and nonsense.”

Ainsley headed for the door, but she was having too much fun not to poke the dragon. “You sound like you’d be relieved to get out of this town of lunacy and nonsense.”

“Well, I would, Ainsley, but I raised my hand a couple days ago and now I’m stuck here,” Elizabeth replied, grinning.

“I’ll see you when I get back, Madam President,” Ainsley said, reaching for the doorknob.

“Only if I don’t burn the place down between now and then.”

* * *

It would be unseemly for a one-star general to admit that he knocked over a table lamp upon hearing the news that he was being sent to Atlantis by Presidential order, but that was exactly what Cameron Mitchell did.

“Sorry, babe,” he said, catching the lamp. “Did you say we’re going to Atlanta?”

Ainsley glared at him half-heartedly. “You heard me.”

Without letting him respond, she scooped Lila up from the floor and started talking to her while she left the room.

Three days later, Ainsley’s mom had come up to take care of Lila and they were entering the Cheyenne Mountain compound. Cam hadn’t been back there since his promotion. He was looking forward to seeing people, although some had come out to North Carolina for the wedding a few months back. The base couldn’t be left unattended, of course, so he’d hardly seen everyone.

They parked in the lot and walked toward the entrance to the mountain base. Ainsley took his hand and asked, “What’s this uniform called?”

“ABU.” Ainsley rolled her eyes, so he added, “Airman battle uniform. Used to be battle dress uniform. You know, if you’re going to be an Air Force wife—”

“I’m the attorney general of the United States, Cam,” she interrupted. “You don’t see me expecting you to learn what all the abbreviations in my life stand for.” After a silence, she continued, “Besides, I married a general. I don’t expect to be an Air Force wife for very long.”

He chuckled. “I concede the point.”

Inside the base, nearly everyone knew Cam. He hadn’t been away for that long, after all. Ainsley looked bored, but he imagined that she was experiencing what he’d felt at the inauguration balls a week ago.

They came down to the briefing room, and Ainsley walked straight to the window that overlooked the gate room. Cam couldn’t blame her. Even inactive, it was a sight to see.

By the time she spoke, she was shaking her head a little. “I got to see a supercollider once,” she said, while Cam rested his hands on her shoulders. “They had it open for maintenance. I couldn’t fathom how huge it was, or how it worked.”

Cameron knew what she was saying without her having to spell it out. He let one of his hands drift down to intertwine with hers, and he bent to kiss her neck. She was used to how he showed affection now, so little could really surprise her, but he did enjoy the little shiver she couldn’t repress as his lips brushed her skin.

A moment later, they were no longer alone, and Cam stepped back as they heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the room below. Ainsley was here as a member of the Cabinet and he as her military escort. He would do his best to be professional, even though she was his wife of three months and the woman he’d been in love with longer than he cared to admit.

He wasn’t surprised to see Admiral Kate Harper alight in the room, although the man behind her caught him off-guard. He was mostly bald but probably Cam’s age, and he wore a suit. Cam also noticed that he was armed.

“Kate,” Ainsley said to the admiral, smiling as they shook hands. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You’re looking well, Ainsley,” Kate replied, then nodded to Cameron. “General.”

“Cap’n.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “For the hundredth time, Cam, this is a mountain, not a boat.”

The civilian behind the admiral chuckled at this exchange. Ainsley addressed him before Cam and Kate could go much further. “Agent Casper.”

“Ms. Hayes,” he said with a warm smile.

“You two know each other?” Cam asked.

“Agent Casper is the new head of the Stargate Civilian Advisory Agency,” Ainsley explained. “The SCAA just got pulled out of Homeland Security and folded into Justice, so Agent Casper works for me.”

Cameron didn’t pretend to understand why anything related to the Stargate would wind up in the Justice Department, but he let it slide. “Cameron Mitchell,” he said, offering a handshake.

The other man had a strong grip. “It’s good to meet you, General. Ms. Hayes has told me about you.”

Kate fortunately prevented the conversation from going further by pointing out the time. “We’re dialing Atlantis in about a minute,” she said. “If you three will join me down in the control room?”

While they headed down the stairs, Cameron said lowly to Ainsley, “You didn’t tell me Casper the Friendly Agent was coming.”

At the bottom of the spiral stair, she looked up at him in amusement. “I hope you weren’t thinking this was going to be some kind of second honeymoon,” she teased. “I have work to do, and I’m sure Ellie Bartlet can find something for you to do too.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m lots of fun.”

Ainsley shushed him as the dialing sequence started. “You know this is no big deal, right?” he murmured in her ear.

“For you, maybe,” she replied.

In the bustle of the control room they were swiftly separated. Ainsley and Agent Casper moved toward the back of the narrow room to stay out of the way. Cameron might have joined them, except that he did belong at Kate’s side. “So how’s married life?” Kate asked lowly while they stood side by side. They wouldn’t have much time for conversation before the wormhole established.

“A little less weird than fatherhood,” he admitted. “Don’t get me wrong. I love them both. It’s just a big adjustment.”

“Yeah, but I bet you finally made your mom happy.”

“Yeah, she and Lila took to each other like—what do you mean, finally?”

Kate was laughing as the dialing sequence finished, but the tired voice that crackled over the speakers did away with the light mood. “SGC, this is Atlantis,” said Ellie Bartlet. “Do you read?”

“We read you, Atlantis,” Kate replied. “The attorney general’s party is ready to embark on your go-ahead.”

There was a longer pause than Cameron expected. “We’ve got a situation on our hands,” Bartlet replied. “Rather, we’re dealing with the aftermath. We just fended off a small band of Wraith.”

Cameron’s attention snapped to his old boss. “How small are we talking?” Harper asked.

“About a hundred. Historically speaking, that’s pretty small. A lot of our military force was off-world, though, so we were caught off-guard.”

Cam got Ainsley’s attention and kept his voice low. “It’s been about eighteen months since the last Wraith sighting in the Pegasus galaxy.”

Meanwhile Harper was asking whether or not to send visitors. Another long pause followed. “If they’re still game, they can come. Just as long as they’re clear that they may have to help us clean up.”

Harper looked at Ainsley. “You up for it?”

“No objections here,” Ainsley replied.

“All right,” Harper said, turning back to the microphone. “We’re sending them through.”

While still on the radio, Bartlet gave the order to lower the shield in the Atlantis gate room. Despite the fact that he was tagging along on this mission, Cam quickly took the lead, his wife and the agent following him down into the gate room. They gathered up their bags and walked up the ramp. Unfortunately there was no time to marvel at the gate.

The pristine city did not look the way he remembered. It was either late evening or early morning, and the gate room was hazy with smoke. Two men were heading out of the area with fire extinguishers in hand. There were a few Wraith bodies lying around. Movement up in the control room caught Cam’s attention. The director’s office had two broken panels of glass.

Three people soon came down the stairs into the gate room. He remembered Marcus Lorne from the SGC, and he’d seen enough pictures of Ellie Bartlet to recognize her. Behind them was a third person, a tall, slender woman with red hair tied back. Her uniform had burgundy accents instead of black, so she wasn’t military.

But it was Ellie Bartlet who soon commanded everyone’s attention. She had a good amount of blood spatter on her clothes and was bleeding through a bandage wrapped around her right hand. “Dr. Bartlet,” Ainsley greeted, taking the lead. “Colonel Lorne. You probably know or know of General Mitchell, and this is Mike Casper, the new director of the Stargate Civilian Advisory Agency.”

Cam and Lorne nodded to each other. Meanwhile Ellie said, “I’d shake your hand, but…” As she trailed off, she lifted her injured right hand slightly.

“What happened?” Casper asked.

“Some group of Wraith found an old GDO,” Lorne said. “It was lost about four years ago. Should have been deleted from the database, but it wasn’t.”

“So they walked right through the gate?” Ainsley asked, looking back at the gate behind her.

“Yeah,” Lorne said, tersely. It was obvious that he was angry with himself over this failure.

Ainsley opened her mouth to ask another question when suddenly Ellie swayed on her feet. Just as her knees started to buckle, Lorne and the other woman swiftly grabbed her. “That’s it, we’re going to the infirmary,” Lorne said. He had one arm at his wife’s back, and with little apparent effort he set the other behind her knees and lifted her from the ground. “Harrigan, do you mind staying with our guests?”

“Not at all,” said the woman. “Radio me if the infirmary needs people to come down and give blood.”

“Will do.”

Lorne walked away, and Bartlet didn’t put up any kind of protest. Cam was deeply curious about how Bartlet had injured herself, but there would be time for that later. He turned to the woman who remained. “Cam Mitchell,” she said, offering a handshake.

“Molly Harrigan, sir. City security.” Harrigan had a strong grip.

“Good to meet you. I assume by security you don’t mean the military type?”

“Internal,” Harrigan replied. “Let me find out where you’re being quartered and get you there.”

They followed Harrigan up into the control room, where she commandeered a display and looked up the information she needed. “There’s only two rooms assigned,” she said after a minute. “I’m not making assumptions about which of three possible couples here is the right one.”

Cam glanced at Casper over his wife’s head. “So many jokes. I can’t choose.”

Casper laughed, and Cam could practically feel Ainsley rolling her eyes. “You guys have lounges, right? I could make Cam sleep on a sofa somewhere?” she asked.

Harrigan smiled. “Come on, I’ll show you to your rooms. Then we’ve got work to do.”

* * *

Ellie never quite lost consciousness, but Marcus caused a stir in the packed infirmary when he carried her in. “What happened?” said Major Croft, the head nurse. “Was there more action?”

Ellie shook her head and answered for herself, though weakly. “No, I—I think I need stitches after all.”

Carson appeared from one of the back rooms looking alarmed. “I must have missed an announcement.”

“She put off coming in,” Marcus said.

“Bring her over here,” Croft ordered, gesturing to a half-cleared table nearby. The beds were all full.

Ellie had bled through her bandage, which surprised no one, but Carson still let out a curse at the sight. “I take it you fainted?” he asked.

“I don’t think I lost consciousness, but I probably need a unit of blood.”

“Listen, Ellie, I know doctors and expedition directors both tend to be terrible patients, but you don’t have to pull double duty, all right?”

Ellie cracked a small smile while the nurse got to work. “Yes, Doctor.”

There was nothing for Marcus to do here and a great deal outside, so he kissed his wife and left her to the capable care of the infirmary. He headed back toward the control room, mentally tallying what needed to be done before he could sleep. He’d gotten as far as structural reports and casualty duty before running into one of their guests. “General Mitchell,” he said, “I didn’t get to say this before but it’s good to see you again.”

“Likewise, Colonel,” Mitchell replied. They had known each other, though not well, when Marcus was stationed at the SGC and Mitchell was a 302 pilot.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I was about to ask you the same. Officially I’m here to offer a military perspective on what Ainsley’s reviewing, but it seems like right now I could be more useful elsewhere. You look like you haven’t slept in a couple days. I at least had coffee before we left.”

“I’d really appreciate that, sir,” Marcus said.

Mitchell turned and walked with him toward the control room. “I take it you’ve got someone purging the GDO database?”

“Should be done already. Ellie gave that order as soon as the firing stopped.”

“Might be time to think about a more sophisticated system.”

Marcus squeezed his eyes shut for a second, trying to get some moisture onto his contact lenses. “Yeah. Maybe something like the VLF transponder that Ellie wears.”

“Admiral Harper only wears that when she’s off-world, to my knowledge.”

“Due respect, sir, we’ve been invaded more than the SGC has.”

They reached the control room then, and both men stopped in the entrance. Acrid smoke hung in the room, along with the odor of blood. Mitchell was shaking his head. “Thought I’d seen this for the last time when I took a desk job.”

Marcus would have answered, but his gaze was drawn to Ellie’s office. Two of the windows were smashed, and there was so much blood. He walked past the weary control room techs to look at the room more closely.

The Wraith corpse still lay on the floor next to the desk, stabbed and shot multiple times. Marcus had seen how this fight had ended from the gate room below. Mitchell looked at the room in horror. “What happened here?”

“Ellie got cornered up here,” Marcus said. “When she ran out of ammo all she had was a glass shard.”

Mitchell walked over to the body to get a closer look. “No wonder she was bleeding.”

Marcus turned around abruptly and left. It had been vicious enough in the moment. He didn’t need to see more.

General Mitchell followed but said nothing about the carnage they had just left behind. “And here I thought my week couldn’t get any worse.”

Marcus glanced at him. “Yeah?”

“Ainsley just started as attorney general,” he explained. “I was with her during her first remarks to the press, and at the end I happened to make a joke which, in retrospect, was not very funny. There’s a statue of Lady Justice, I guess, in the foyer of the Justice Department. And she’s not exactly clothed.”

It took Marcus a minute to process what this meant. “Are you telling me there’s a statue of a naked woman in the Justice Department?”

“Bare-breasted, but yes.”

“Well, that’s an interesting use of taxpayer dollars.”

“That’s what I said, into a microphone I didn’t realize was still live. And what set off a small media problem for my wife.”

“I’m suddenly really glad that director of Atlantis seems to be the extent of my wife’s ambition.”

“Hardly a small ambition.”

“No, but it comes with mercifully little press exposure.”

* * *

Ainsley met with Molly Harrigan about an hour after the other woman had led her to quarters. Cam had gone off to see if he could help with other matters. “I hope I’m not taking you from anything,” Ainsley said as she sat down with Harrigan in her quarters.

She waved her off. “Don’t worry about that. It was a good excuse to take a shower.”

Ainsley smiled slightly. “Well, I’ve been looking over the documents you sent,” she said. “I think what I most want to talk about is your philosophy behind this endeavor.”

Harrigan nodded. “You know how I wound up here. It was kind of remarkable to me, and remarkably shortsighted, that Atlantis had gone so long without any kind of internal law. With the first group I suppose it wasn’t that necessary. They could abide by some sort of unspoken contract with each other, partly because they were trying to survive. But once the expedition opened up, they really needed to write something down. I’m amazed it took so long for something bad enough to happen that they needed someone like me.”

“You’ve got at least thirty nationalities represented in Atlantis, not to mention a few people from the Pegasus galaxy,” Ainsley said. “How did you reconcile the different expectations that people here would have of a legal system?”

“Well, the first thing was that whatever legal system exists here has to exist without the benefit of legal professionals,” Harrigan replied. “President Weir is a lawyer, of course, and so is Jordan Kendall, but neither of them are criminal lawyers. And you can’t run a Western-style court with one only lawyer.”

Ainsley nodded. “Well, I think the system of magistrates you’re proposing is a good solution. Especially that it works like jury duty, and everyone has to serve eventually.”

“They’ll also have to serve jury duty.”

Ainsley laughed a little. “Probably won’t be able to get out of it, either.”

“Not as long as I’m running the program.”

“How will this function with the Air Force and Marine codes?”

“Honestly, I drew on those pretty heavily,” Harrigan said. “US military justice isn’t the end-all of the world, but it seemed fair to base at least the criminal aspects of the Atlantis code on what a good portion of our current residents are already bound to.”

Ainsley narrowed her eyes a little. “We should probably call it something other than the Atlantis code. That really brings bad thrillers to mind a little too readily.”

That made Harrigan laugh, though the sound was tired. “That’s fair.”

“I know you’ve consulted people here on this. Have you gotten pushback?”

“Yeah,” she replied, leaning back in her chair. “Every time something like the last day happens. I guess I understand why some of these scientists think it’s unnecessary, but I think it’s a bit myopic to assume that people who are incredibly smart have no need for writing down their legal code. But they’d be livid if they found out someone was stealing their research, and they’d want a system to help them resolve that. This is the point of governance. Some wrongs you can’t right on your own. That fact doesn’t go away just because space vampires occasionally attack.”

“That is unsettling, though.”

“You’re telling me.”

Ainsley paused, wondering if her next question was appropriate. “Do you mind if I ask what happened here today?”

“It was an ambush,” Molly said without pause. “Nothing more complicated than that. The soldiers who were here did their jobs, and so did the civilians, but we had so many guns off-world that it could have gone the other way pretty easily.”

Ainsley nodded, remembering some of her husband’s half-told tales of derring-do. “What happened to Ellie?”

Molly’s expression turned grim. “I was with Dr. Bartlet in her office when the attack started. The glass got blown out almost immediately. We came out into the control room, but I got distracted and she got forced back into her office.” She stood and walked to the window. “I think it’s easy to forget that this place is a line of defense for Earth too,” she said, touching the glass.

“A lot of people wouldn’t agree,” Ainsley ventured. “A lot of people would say the Pegasus galaxy poses no threat that we didn’t cause.”

“I know.” Molly turned back to face her. “But until we get out of the habit of starting these conflicts, we can’t pretend these problems don’t exist, whether we created them or not.”

Ainsley turned off her tablet and rose, buttoning her jacket. “I know from my husband that Stargate Command has often seen political involvement as opportunistic interference, but I’m not here to report back to the president. I’m here to advise you. I hope you keep that in mind.”

“I will.”

Ainsley took up her things and headed back to her quarters. She spent the next couple hours reviewing the proposed legal code yet again, making notes and wishing the president had given her three months to do this instead of three days. Still, she had to admit that Molly Harrigan had done a remarkable job. 

When Cam returned, Ainsley had changed into a tank top and pulled her hair up in a messy bun. He was a lot dirtier than the last time she saw him, and when he leaned down to kiss her neck, she smelled smoke. She closed her work and took both his hands as he rested them on her shoulders. “How bad is it?” she asked.

“I was going to ask you the same.” With a heavy sigh he sat down on the bed. “These people know what they’re doing. They know how to cope with a crisis. I think they’re more shaken than anything else.”

“Ellie’s probably not feeling great about this.”

“I can’t imagine she is. She just took over here, what, six months ago?”

“Something like that.”

Ainsley spun her chair a quarter turn and propped her feet up in Cam’s lap. “Have you seen her since we got here?”

Cam shook his head. “Lorne seemed pretty rattled.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

He didn’t answer right away, grabbing the arm of her chair instead and rolling it toward him. As he leaned back, he pulled her out of the chair and on top of him. “Babe,” he breathed, touching her face with a desperate gentleness she thought they had left behind.

The first time he made love to her, he’d been off-world for a month and stranded for half that time. She’d been worried sick for those two weeks, and when he came straight to see her instead of his parents, she knew something was about to change. Still, with that as its cause, she expected something more raw from their first time together.

Instead, he touched her like this, like she was something precious, like every touch was a blessing. When he was promoted and took a desk job, she’d thought these moments were gone, and she wasn’t sorry to see the end of them. But she wasn’t sorry about this now. She knew how to deal with this, to touch him and kiss him and show him the nightmares were past.

After, when she was lying in his arms, listening to the distant sound of the ocean and their own breathing, he was still touching her, fingers caressing her side idly. “What are you thinking about?” he asked in a low murmur.

“How none of the kids I went to high school with would believe I just had sex on an alien planet,” she said, and he shook with laughter. Then she shifted up onto her elbow so she could look at his face. “And how glad I am to have you.”

Cam lifted her hand and kissed it. “I love you.”

She kissed him once and again. “I love you too.”

* * *

When evening fell there were six dead, and Ellie was trying to convince herself that she was ought to count herself lucky not to be among them.

All things considered, she’d gotten off easy. A transfusion and some stitches were hardly an injury to write home about. But Ellie walked back to her quarters with a weight in her chest that hadn’t been there when she woke up.

It wasn’t her first time to see action in Atlantis, nor even her first time to kill a Wraith. But those other times she hadn’t been so alone, nor had that first kill been so brutal. She didn’t know if she would ever forget the surprise on the Wraith’s face as she picked up the broken glass and stabbed him. She was still surprised herself.

Marcus had come running up the stairs as she stumbled out of the office and embraced her as tightly as tactical gear would allow. There was no time to absorb it, though. There were injuries to treat and fires to put out and problems to solve. Ellie wondered how Elizabeth and John had managed to stay sane during those early years, when crises seemed to come every week.

She especially didn’t know how they had managed before their relationship developed into a true partnership. When Marcus arrived in their quarters that night, Ellie was lying on the bed, tucked on her side. She heard him pause to take off his shoes before lying down behind her, wrapping his arm around her securely. “El?”

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m not the one with a hand full of stitches.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think anyone’s asked you that today.”

He didn’t argue that. “No,” he said, his voice cracking. “I almost lost you today, Ellie. No, I’m not okay.”

Ellie turned over a little awkwardly and touched his face with her uninjured hand. “I… I don’t know how to help, Marcus.”

He shook his head a little. “I don’t either.”

He shifted a little to rest his forehead against hers, and for a few moments they just lay together in silence. Then Ellie remembered something. “Do you remember when we were first dating and I got stuck by a needle?”

“You spent a week in quarantine.”

“We got through that,” she said, stroking his unshaved cheek with her thumb. “We’ll get through this.”

They drifted off to sleep before long, both too far spent for more than hazy dreams.

* * *

In the middle of the next morning, a group convened in the conference room. Ainsley and Agent Casper were both in suits, which Cam supposed was appropriate and made him wonder if he should have brought his dress blues after all. The Atlantis personnel weren’t particularly dressed up, but Dr. Bartlet at least looked like she was in command of the situation. Lorne still looked grim, but Cam knew he’d get past this failure eventually.

But this meeting belonged to Molly Harrigan, the internal security officer of Atlantis. With the efficiency of an expert she laid out her plan for an Atlantis constitution, with civil rights and responsibilities and the framework for adapting it to the needs of the community. It struck Cameron with some force during the presentation that this was actually putting into words what Atlantis had become over the years: a community.

He was not the only one to catch on to that. “Jordan Kendall used to say something when she was here,” Ellie Bartlet said. “She said Elizabeth Weir led an expedition. She and I were city planners. I don’t think she was wrong.”

Harrigan shook her head. “No, ma’am. The last day and a half notwithstanding, we are not a band of explorers, not in the same sense as the SGC. We are a people of a place, and a place needs laws.”

Before he and Ainsley and Casper left for Earth again, the Atlantis constitution was put to a vote, the first vote held in that city for many a millennium. Molly Harrigan’s proposal was thus given the force of law and making Atlantis a people once more.

All three were summoned to the White House upon setting foot back on Earth. President Weir was understandably anxious to hear firsthand accounts of the attack on what had once been her city. “Congress is going to want to hold hearings,” she told them. “The three of you may be called to testify.”

Cameron tried to keep his distaste off his face. He’d had more than enough of Senate hearings when he was promoted to general. “It was a computer error,” Casper said. He’d spent a good deal of his time with the security staff of the city. “A freak accident.”

“I know,” the president replied, “but this is the first attack on Atlantis since I left. They’re going to dredge up a lot of old grievances.”

“Let them,” Ainsley said, somewhat to Cam’s surprise. “Atlantis just ratified its own constitution, in the aftermath of this. And Ellie Bartlet killed a Wraith with her bare hands, so maybe Congress will learn a lesson about messing with her.”

President Weir almost laughed, though it was rather mirthless. “Atlantis was always going to be inherently more political than the SGC, which is probably saying something,” she said. “My husband would be a Medal of Honor recipient if he’d been at the SGC. But because his near-suicide mission was in the Pegasus galaxy, he may not ever get proper recognition for that.”

“Due respect, ma’am, you may also be a factor in that,” Ainsley pointed out.

“Fair enough.” The president stood, and the others with her. “Thank you. I know you got more than you signed up for on this trip.”

“Can we get a quiet week now?” Ainsley asked.

“Oh, if only.”

Casper went off on his own, leaving Ainsley and Cam to leave the White House hand in hand. It was a Sunday, and both of them refused to go to the office for at least another eighteen hours. As they walked to their car, Ainsley said, “I’m glad you came with me, Cam.”

“I’m glad I did too,” he replied. But he had a family of his own now, and he wasn’t sorry to leave behind the danger and uncertainty of his old job. Hopefully in the future he wouldn’t forget that when desk duty got dull.

They reached the car, and as he opened the door for her, Cam said, “Let’s go home, Ains. I miss our girl.”


End file.
